Good one. Because moving from wing to center when you played center for most of your life is such an insurmountable change. People get moved around from wing to center and center to wing all the time in the NHL.

He played center for like 10 games of Junior. Most good players are centers in Atom, Bantam, Midget etc.. Wouldn't call him playing center then meaning more than him playing wing for 95% of his Junior A career.

Plus he doesn't want to play center. He said that already and said his game is suited for the wing.

Good one. Because moving from wing to center when you played center for most of your life is such an insurmountable change. People get moved around from wing to center and center to wing all the time in the NHL.

A: A centerman playing wing happens a bit, but the other way around is pretty unusual. For a reason.
B: Hall played left wing in the OHL.

It has been 2 games.. we are 1 and 1.. yesterday it did not matter what the line combos were.. the first period was horrible.. if you play like that your going to get lit up no matter what the lines are. I was at least happy to see a response in the 2nd and 3rd.. and felt the Hall nuge ebs line was creating chances. No need to panic yet. I would like to see Fistric get in though

The only reason to break up the lines is if you're not getting secondary scoring.

In the first two games we've been getting that secondary scoring, albeit through our 2nd unit PP, but beggars can't be choosers.

Gagner quietly has two primary assists. Unfortunately, he's missed some defensive assignments, and bled a few goals the other way as well.

This attitude of 'scoring is all that matters' is a problem. Yakupov is currently, for all his lovable traits, a complete mess defensively. Gagner is at best mediocre in this category and Hemsky is weak. The line isn't smart enough to handle big bodies in the defensive zone, they need someone with more power forward characteristics to help out. Hence Hall. Gagner would do better on the wing.

I don't think Spezza or Sedin are all that great either. However, a lot of these guys probably look good defensively because they don't actually spend much time in their own end. With his speed and explosiveness, Hall is best utilized as a counter punch option, not reduced to grinding it out in his own corners (something he doesn't have the size for anyway).

Everyone here always complained about the MacBlender, now after a game and a half everyone is clamoring for line changes. Eberle-RHN-Hall have good chemistry together, and Yakupov is obviously starting to develop chemistry with Gagner and Hemsky. How about instead of everyone freaking out and wanting to blow everything up anytime we have a bad game, maybe let the guys work things out for themselves and get into the flow of the game. Give them 4 or 5 games together before you start talking line change.

I hate how flip floppy us Oiler fans are. We win against Vancouver and we are going to make the playoffs, beginning of the new dynasty, changing of the NW Division guard... We lose against San Jose, and we need to blow up the lines, switch Hall to centre, trade Gagner, and blame Potter for losing all the games for us. Chill out, it is a single game.

I hate how flip floppy us Oiler fans are. We win against Vancouver and we are going to make the playoffs, beginning of the new dynasty, changing of the NW Division guard... We lose against San Jose, and we need to blow up the lines, switch Hall to centre, trade Gagner, and blame Potter for losing all the games for us. Chill out, it is a single game.

I hate how flip floppy us Oiler fans are. We win against Vancouver and we are going to make the playoffs, beginning of the new dynasty, changing of the NW Division guard... We lose against San Jose, and we need to blow up the lines, switch Hall to centre, trade Gagner, and blame Potter for losing all the games for us. Chill out, it is a single game.

Pretty fallacious argument, don't you think? I have been for Hall moving to center for a year. It sounds like you are attributing posts of one person to another for no particular reason. When making judgments about a person, you should actually consider how much that individual's opinion changes. You shouldn't take someone else's words, contrast them with something different said by another person two days later, then attribute it all to only one of them.

All of the top 4 scoring players in the NHL last year were centermen, and 6 of the top 10. Being a centerman doesn't automatically result in less offensive production. In fact, it can often help.

One of the points of this is that he has the speed to be everywhere on the ice.

So, respectfully, your analogy is incorrect.

He lacks the vision and play-making abilities of a centerman, his passing ability falls between average-above-average. I don't see how his game would benefit from moving to center, he's a great puck carrier, but I could easily see more turnovers caused by him moving to center.

His game is suited for the wing because he's first and foremost a goalscorer, and the only center in the league who has much better goal scoring abilities than his play-making ones is a guy who can pot 60 in a year.

Yeah, he played center in jrs. He racked up a ton of points from being a selfish puck carrier who's main weakness was being unable to unitize his teammates properly even on a stacked team. Which is fine in jrs, you gotta do what you gotta do to stand out from the rest in that league.

All they need to do as others have echoed is swap Gagner and the Nuge. Gagner doesn't play both ways, Hall and Ebs do and can play with anybody at C. Nuge plays two way, Hemsky and Yak (at least not yet) don't and they can set up and convert the Nuge's magic.